I thought about rescuing some horses and retraining them for a sutiable home.

It would cost me around
$500 to get an auctions horse (plus gas, its like 100 miles to the auction)
$400 a month for a suitable facility
Plus all the time its sitting, while I look for buyers.

I would need to sell the horse for atleast $900-1300 (assuming 1-2 months training.) So a a few thousand would get me about break even. I don't think a few thousand is unreasonable, if costs are higher in the area.

Sillybunny, the cost to sell the animal based on your figures and what they represent is fine.

However, very few rescues put time, money and effort into getting horses trained. They just don't have the disposable funds.

I got my newest horse for free. He's with my trainer right now because he needs to unlearn how to be a racehorse, and learn how to be a foxhunter. He'll be with my trainer for 3 to 6 months, and she's not cheap.

But he's young, sound, safe, and sane, which most rescues can't guarantee. You pays yer money, and you takes yer chances.

Besides, with plenty of horses like the one I just got out there for free, why would ANYONE pay a 'rescue' $2,500 for a broken down nag?

If people want to broker horses, that's their business. They just shouldn't call themselves rescues if they do, because they're not.

Plus, and this is a MAJOR pet peeve of mine; if you BUY a horse at auction IT'S NOT A RESCUE, IT'S A PURCHASE!

You may be upgrading the animal, but you sure as heck didn't 'rescue' it.

I think rescue is the most overused, misunderstood word in the horse community.

But buying from an auction? Or from the racetrack? Heck by that definition somebody could come "rescue" my horses. Or any horse for that matter seeing as how horses are probably the most injury prone animal ever... LOL, rescuing them from themselves!

For the whole rescueing from an auction/racetrack thing IMO I think it depends on where the horse was going home to if it didnt get sold that day. If it was a bad place its a rescue, if they are going home to a place that may not still love them but will feed them, its not a rescue, its a purchase.

removing a horse for a potentially dangerous situation would then be considered a rescue, as would buying from a kill pen.

No, that is incorrect.

Potentially dangerous doesn't mean the situation will be, just that by your perception it might be.

Buying from a kill pen is still buying.

Rescue is actual rescuing. Like pulling an animal from a dumpster, or finding them in the woods and bringing them home so they won't starve, or taking them on from an owner who just can't afford them anymore.

You can make yourselves feel better by telling yourselves you 'rescued' an animal, but if you paid money for it you bought it. Which makes it a financial transaction. Which means you've rewarded the person you paid money to, which encourages them to sell more of the same.

Charlatans and horse traders bank on people wanting to feel superior by saying they 'rescued' something, which is how they manage to rook people into paying for animals that no one in their right minds would take on.

So it's a vicious cycle. People who crow about rescuing when they actually bought the animal, are really only fueling the sales and lining the pockets of those who are willing to let them make fools of themselves.

I just hate to see people being taken advantage of, even when they're too blind to realize it.

Bringing them home so they won't starve, or taking them on from an owner who just can't afford them anymore.... that too me sounds like horses who end up in the kill pen.

Most horses sold there are sold for maybe $10-100. Do you think people make money off of that price?? It would cost me that much to get a horse there, and pay the auction fee. I wouldnt make a dime. Economicly no one is going to put a horse in a kill pen, if they can make money for it elsewere.

I have a couple of horses that I would let someone rescue. They may somehow hurt themselves in the future. The adoption fee is $4000 plus shipping and handling. All my horses have been abused (too much feed and too little exercise) and need someone to wuv them.

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